Lakeville, PEI -
Seagulls and ducks were swimming in the potato field that grower Boyd Rose dug Sunday night (Oct. 18) near North Lake (Prince Edward Island).
With that kind of water and sodden soil, Monday (Oct. 19) wasn't a day when potato farmers were out in droves to make the fall harvest. Many won't be out today either as a wet and dreary October continues to hamper the harvest of the Island's most important agricultural crop.
"It's a mess,'' says the chairman of the PEI Potato Board from his home here. "It's very hard going and all we can do is hope things get better."
Tractors, trucks and harvesters are abandoned these days and waiting for the ground to dry out. The onslaught of rain that has taken up the majority of days throughout this month has delayed the 2009 harvest of about 85,000 acres by a week to 10 days.
Rain is bad enough, but when frost is coming earlier than usual it's posing a real problem. While early planters like farmers in southern Kings may be a little ahead, the heavier soil farmers in western PEI have endured even more rain and muck to deal with this fall.
"On frost days you can't get on the land until midday and when we wake up to rain in the morning that pretty well cancels out the day for harvest."
The board chairman says the panic button hasn't been hit, but farmers are very concerned about the weather forecasts. Fortunately, the end of the week looks good with sun and warmer temperatures to help dry out fields that are so soggy that tractors just sink to the axles. Eastern PEI may be wet but the western part of the province has dealt with even greater precipitation, measuring up to eight inches.
"There are low-lying fields that will never be harvested now,'' says Rose. "But if the weather turns for us and it gets better, we'll still get about 95 per cent dug."
Growers are hoping the 2009 season isn't a repeat of last year when heavy rains throughout August and September practically drowned much of the crop. The growing season this year was excellent weather-wise but Rose says the August heat wave will likely put a bumper crop back to average status.
"You would think all that fine weather we had this summer would have done the trick, but we're hearing a lot of growers saying the potatoes are small and some of the Russets (for processing) aren't large enough."
It may look bleak, but Rose says potato growers have an amazing capacity to get the crop out of the ground when the weather cooperates even if that means day and night harvesting. A full moon is expected Nov. 2 and that means cold.
"We can only hope that within the next two weeks we can get the harvest in before any cold weather arrives."
